Teachers Pay Teachers 3 Million Teachers Strong Sale

Just a quick post to remind those who don't know already that there is a HUGE TpT Sale going on until tomorrow.  I'm offering every item in my store for sale plus you can get an additional TpT 10% discount when you enter the code TPT3.  This totals 28% off.  Not too shabby.  It's time to go through your shopping carts and ring up those purchases.  I'm doing the same.  Happy shopping everyone!  Thank you to all my followers and customers.

A Little of This and a Little of That

Busy, busy, busy just about sums up my winter so far.  A snow day here, another snow day there, too.  I took a bunch of pictures before I left my classroom today because upon looking up from my table I thought to myself, "There's a lot going on here!"  As a result, this post was born.

I'm really liking my new part of my dry erase board where I "post" my objectives.  Before, I had them typed out and would switch them out of clear pocket charts--a real pain.  They had to be refiled which means they were kept in a pile.  To fix this, I hung some letters with ribbon and clothespins.  I added a border and magnetic signs for each subject and viola.  I can erase and change my "We Can!" statements in just a few seconds.  Waaaaay easier.

We are well into our Lucy Calkins unit on Opinion Writing--I'm a big fan of her ideas, her language and her overall philosophy on how to teach writing.  The only problem I have, though, is that I have no more room to hang her anchor charts!  Completely out of room this afternoon, I had no choice but to hang a chart on my bookshelf--it's actually the perfect fit.  Don't you think?

  

On my writing bulletin board we are still enjoying our New Year's project of mine--"Ringing in the New Year."  Our resolutions are not only radiant.  They look pretty nice on display.  Check out this item by clicking HERE.

In science, we are studying matter.  In particular, we are learning about changing states.  We have two ongoing experiments with evaporation happening in our classroom.  Both are so easy and oh so interesting.  Today is day 73 of our evaporating orange water experiment.  All we did was fill an old snack jar with water and food coloring and made predictions on how many days it would take for the water to completely evaporate.  We have been marking its evaporation every so often.  Here's what we have so far.  Boy, this is taking much longer than I had expected.  You can see by my guess of 80 days.

We also started an evaporation race.  I put an equal amount of water in four different containers with four different sized openings.  I measured the water right in front of my young scientists.  We made predictions as to which container would cause the water to evaporate the quickest.  We are watching carefully for the winner.

Moments ago, I uploaded my newest item--  A Bloom's Taxonomy Jar.  I put color coded prompts for each of Bloom's level on large craft sticks in a spray-painted, recycled can (I added some fun accents).  I haven't used these yet, but I plan to send my students off with a prompt to write about after a guided reading lesson.  We will see how this works.  You may get this item by visiting my TpT store or by clicking HERE.  It also comes with a ladder visual to use in explicit instruction regarding the levels of questioning.

Well that's all my pictures.  I hope you have been able to be inspired!  

Activating Schema

Good readers and writers--well good learners in general, bring a "backpack" of prior background knowledge to school each day along with the backpack that holds their lunch, homework, and so on.  This knowledge is what has been coined the "fancy-smancy" term schema by Piaget.  We all know that what children learn is based on their adaption to the world as we present it through books, inquiry-based learning, read-alouds and technology.

Assimilation occurs when our young learners use their background knowledge to learn something new.  Accommodation occurs when the background knowledge doesn't fit in the right way so things have to be adjusted.  We do this through reading all the time.  It's our job to explicitly teach our young readers this skill.  

Since the best ideas I get are often the ones I learn from other teachers, I saw this idea from Erica's Ed-Ventures (check out her blog by clicking HERE) and had to use it.  Here's her photograph that was my inspiration.  She used this anchor chart to activate her students' schema on bats.

I decided to type up these headings for myself because my first and second graders are well into our Weather Unit, specifically studying about rain.  We discussed our background knowledge to kick-off our study.  We did some science experiments, and I read aloud several books on rain.  My favorite book is Down Comes the Rain by the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out series.  All of these are AWESOME, by the way.

Here is what our Schema Map looked like.  Notice in these two pictures how we started to move the stickies along as our schema was assimilated and accommodated--what a powerful visual to trace our learning.

The possibilities for these headings are endless, and I'm sharing them with all my followers by clicking HERE.  Enjoy and please share how you plan to use them by leaving me a comment--share the love!

Thanking Those in Our Armed Forces

Each year in honor of Veterans Day, I read a few of my usual readalouds including The Wall by Eve Bunting, Pepper's Purple Heart by former Miss America Heather French Henry and Veterans Day by the Rookie Read-About Holidays Series.

  

More importantly, my kiddos do their parts to thank those who served in our Armed Forces by making Veterans Day cards.  We mail them to a local Veterans Hospital, The Soldiers' Home.  I was so happy to be able to continue this tradition of mine in my new school with my teaching partner and the kids we share.  The words on the cards are so heart-felt and inspirational I wanted to share some.  The Veterans in my family, my Uncle Lenny and my NoNo would have been proud of our first and second graders.

Dear Veterans, Thank you for helping keep our country safe
and free.  We love you.  We appreciate you keeping our
country free.

Dear Veterans, You guys did a great job when you were fighting!
Thank you for keeping our country safe and free.  We love
you guys!

Thank you for keeping our country safe.  I love you.

Dear Veterans, Thank you for saving us and helping us.
We love you so much and we are celebrating Veterans Day
just for you guys.  But thank you for helping us.

Thank you Veterans for making our country great!

Cooking Up a Delicious Resource on Equality

I put together this set of activities to go along with my teaching of equality.  Way too often I have seen things like this:

6 + 5 = 11 + 3.

Look familiar?  Yes, 6 + 5 does equal 11, but that does not balance this equation properly.  Throw in the less than and greater than symbols and you get a double yikes!  

Using a bowl of "spaghetti and meatballs," students create equations, and fill in a missing number that finishes incomplete equations (like you see above).  If you pick a meatball labeled "al dente," you get to pick whatever you wish to make the equation true.  My young mathematicians had a blast with these activities.

Serve up a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs by visiting my TpT store by clicking here.

Teacher Week '13 Day 3 ~ Organizing for Instruction

We are "Blog Hoppin'" our way through Teacher Week '13 in the blog world.  Today's topic is one of my favorites...organization for instruction.  I've decided to put together a Top Ten List of some of my "tricks of the trade" for classroom organization.

1.  Class Rules:  Use a pocket chart to organize them so that they can be taken out easily.  When a cherub of mine breaks a rule, I bring the card to him or her to reread the rule and to discuss what we can do to fix it.

2.  Check In:  Start the day off right with an organized check in system.  Here is what mine looks like.  Everyone starts the day off as being absent.  I use numbers instead of names so that I do not have to write them over year after year.

3.  Bins, bins, bins!:  I never put anything on a shelf that is not in a bin.  It makes things look organized, maximizes the space and keeps things tidy.  Also, I always label my bins.

4.  Hardware Holders:  This handy dandy organizer is perfect for keeping tiny things organized.  I use it for my student banks (a form of positive rewards), magnetic letters, calendar pieces, etc.  I suggest that you always glue an item on the outside for easy ID.  Oh, these are fairly inexpensive--BONUS!

5.  Portable Clothes Hangers:  These are way sturdier, less bulky and cost tons less money.  I use one to organize my charts for instruction.  This way they are easily accessible.  I can put one up using the hanger and do not need to fuss over tape.  Easy up, easy down.

6.  High Storage:  Utilize the tops of cabinets to store even more teaching supplies.

7.  Magnetic Shelves:  These are a great way to organize and to display holiday, theme and content books.  I got these from Calloway House.

8.  Shelf Benches:  I turned these shelves on their sides and made an instant bench.  They are a great way to give fun reading seating for buddy reading.  They also, yup you guessed it-- give you MORE storage.

9.  Easter Baskets:  I am a bit obsessive when it comes to these baskets.  They get really cheap after Easter.  They are definitely fun looking.  I use them to organize books, learning tools, etc.  I spy an Easter basket in this photograph...

10.  Centers on Wheels:  I use these rolling cart shelves to store centers.  This way I can turn any area into an instant center by rolling it over.  Here is my fluency center as an example.  This saves time.  I never need to search for my timers, flashcards, etc.

Well I hope you have scored some terrific tips.  I'm off to start checking in with you bloggers to see what inspires me.  Good luck!  Be sure to check out other bloggers by clicking HERE.